Heather Ashford.
He closed his eyes, trying to envision the genteel lady who would soon bear his name.
When the wanton angel of his recent dream drifted into his mind, Sloan cursed. The memory of her sensual lovemaking was dark and sweet… her flesh pale in the moonlight, her fair hair, wild and glorious, spilling over her naked shoulders, her ripe breasts straining for his touch… To his disgust, he felt himself getting hard again.
It had been one hell of a dream. Nothing like reality would be, he was certain. But then, he didn’t want a real woman, or a real marriage. If he had to wed again, he would rather his bride be a prim, starched-up schoolmarm like Miss Ashford. A total stranger who couldn’t touch the inner core of him. Who wouldn’t get any foolish notions about things like love.
Love wouldn’t be part of their bargain.
He could never give his heart again. It had died with his wife.
Chapter 1
St. Louis
March 1887
The telegram burned a hole in her skirt pocket, its message brusque and to the point:
ARRIVING TRAIN WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON—
CEREMONY THURSDAY EARLY—MUST RETURN
COLORADO DIRECTLY—SLOAN MCCORD.
For a wedding arrangement, it lacked all sense of romantic flair, Heather reflected with dismay, and only served to increase her growing feeling of panic. On the morrow she would wed a total stranger.
She must be mad to consider such a step.
But if her head had once been filled with dreams of romance, she could no longer afford such luxuries. She had no one else to turn to. No one to depend on but herself.
A sheen of tears she couldn’t repress blurred her vision as she made the final rounds of her school. It had taken her years, but the conservatory for young ladies had developed an exclusive reputation, where well-bred girls learned deportment, elocution, music, and geography, as well as how to figure sums and to set a fine stitch. The elegant little clapboard house was quartered in one of the better St. Louis neighborhoods—an endeavor she had begun with such excitement and optimism what seemed like a lifetime ago.
With regret and sadness, Heather let her hazel eyes sweep the comfortable parlor one last time, remembering the laughter and sorrows of the past five years. A fierce ache tightened her throat as she recalled the tearful good-byes of this morning, when she’d said farewell to the last of her pupils, a dozen girls ranging from ages nine to sixteen.
“Pray don’t go, Miss Ashford, we don’t want you to leave!”
“Mamma has been perfectly horrid! She intends to enroll me in Mrs. Underwood’s Academy. Please, you can’t let her, Miss Ashford. I’ll die there!”
“Can you not take us with you to Colorado, Miss Ashford?”
Heather had faced their pleas and embraces stoically, refusing to cry—until the youngest presented her with an ivory lace shawl crocheted by all the students with their own labors. Despite an occasional uneven stitch and unsightly knot, the garment seemed beautiful to her.
She had lost her composure then, breaking down with a total uncustomary lack of grace and poise. Tears shimmered now in her eyes as she ran her fingers over the polished mahogany surface of the long-suffering pianoforte.
This chapter of her life had ended. She had been compelled to close her school, but she would not let herself see it as a failure. Merely, the time had come for her to move on. In truth, she would be grateful to have a strong shoulder to lean upon, to help ease the burden she had carried for so long.
And at least she would no longer have to put up with the carping of snobbish mamas, Heather thought defiantly, forcing a halfhearted smile.
Her smile faded as she remembered the telegram in her pocket. Tomorrow she would wed a stranger. Yet she was making the choice, she tried to remind herself. She was taking control of her fate.
Still, she had never felt so alone.
Caitlin’s congratulatory letter gave her some small measure of reassurance. Her friend had staunchly vouched for her future husband’s character, and told her something of Sloan McCord’s past.
A powerful cattle baron who had carved an empire from the majestic Colorado foothills, McCord was known as a maverick. He was cherishing a bitter sorrow—the murder of his beloved Cheyenne wife during a bloody land war.
His tragic story had touched her heart, even though she’d also been warned of his darker side.
Heather had her own reasons for wishing to marry. Her father’s recent death from heart failure had left her alone, with large gambling debts she felt honor-bound to settle. And her sole other choice of suitor was not a man with whom she cared to spend the rest of her life.
There remained only the task of convincing Evan of the soundness of her decision.
Squaring her shoulders, she found her charcoal-gray wool coat and slipped it on over her black bombazine gown, for protection against the chill of the winter afternoon. She was still in mourning for her father, and would have only a limited wardrobe for her wedding. The black bonnet she donned next was one she’d borrowed from Caitlin’s Aunt Winifred, and made her complexion look sallow and her hazel eyes far too large for her face.
Her hand trembled slightly as she locked the front door for the last time. Tomorrow the bank would take possession of the school.
Evan Randolf’s bank.
Negotiating the icy steps with care, Heather turned west, toward home. Evan thought he had won, but he was due for an unpleasant surprise. And she would find more than a measure of satisfaction in informing him she would no longer be a target for his determined designs.
The street widened some three blocks later, to become a thoroughfare lined with barren oaks and flanked by rows of attractive false-front stores. Deep in contemplation, Heather had just reached the corner and started to cross to the opposite side when a commotion to her right jolted her from her thoughts: a woman’s scream, followed by the pounding of horses’ hooves. With alarm she saw a pair of chestnuts galloping pell-mell directly toward her, dragging a closed carriage. The team had no driver, but the passengers within were evidently female, their cries for help echoing with pure terror.
Momentarily frozen with horror, her heart pounding as the out-of-control vehicle bore down on her, Heather could do no more than raise her hands in an instinctive attempt to slow the panicked horses. She barely had time to register how fruitless and foolish her effort was before suddenly she felt herself being wrenched backward by her arm and flung to the cobblestones.
Too stunned even to gasp, she watched dazedly as a man wearing a wide-brimmed Stetson and buckskin overcoat propelled himself past her and lunged at the side of the careening carriage. Be-numbed, she saw the superhuman effort he exerted as he hauled himself on board the brougham, into the driver’s seat.
The desperate action seemed to unfold in slow motion… His hat flying off in the wind, the man flung himself on the back of the near horse and, in a herculean feat of athleticism, stretched down and grabbed one dangling rein, while the passengers within clung fearfully to the straps.
Long miraculous moments later, he managed to wrestle the pair of chestnuts to a trembling halt, nearly a block down the street from where Heather lay sprawled.
“Thank God,” she whispered hoarsely.
She exhaled the ragged breath she’d been holding and unsteadily struggled to her feet. Absently brushing her disheveled skirts with her soiled gloves, she moved forward to offer aid as other bystanders were doing. By the time she came abreast of the brougham, though, a crowd had already formed.
Onlookers helped the two female passengers—a well-dressed woman and a young lady—alight from the carriage. Bonnets askew, shaken and sobbing, they appeared barely able to stand. Their rescuer, after sliding to the ground with easy grace, had gone to the horses’ heads and was speaking in a low crooning voice to soothe the animals’ fright.
Arrested by the husky sound, Heather froze where she stood, her gaze transfixed by the tall, rugged stranger. There
was something compelling about him, an aura of toughness and strength that stemmed from more than simply his height or lean, muscular build. His overlong hair was the color of dusty wheat and brushed the collar of his buckskin coat. She found herself staring at an unruly strand that curled around his hard, stubble-shadowed jaw—
The carriage’s Negro driver came running down the street just then, apologizing profusely to his mistress for letting the horses bolt, even as he took a firm hold of the reins.
Relinquishing responsibility, the stranger ran a hand through his waving hair and glanced back up the street, as if he’d just realized his hat was missing. He started to turn, as if to fetch it, but the elder lady would not permit him to leave.
“Oh, sir … I cannot thank you enough… My daughter and I were terrified!”
“It was nothing, ma’am,” he replied, his voice low and edged with a natural, rough huskiness.
“Nothing! Why, I declare, you saved our very lives!”
“So brave,” the pretty daughter murmured.
Heather concurred wholeheartedly. His heroic action had taken extraordinary courage. She knew of few men who would willingly step into the path of an onrushing vehicle, and fewer still who could manage to intercede so skillfully. He had very likely prevented a tragedy—and saved her from possible injury as well.
He looked reluctant to accept their praise, though, and murmured a brief pardon, obviously intending to take his leave. But the girl reached out a trembling hand and swayed toward him as if she might fall.
He had no option but to catch her. His hands came up to clasp her upper arms, supporting her unwillingly.
Heather could see why the girl might swoon. Lean and sinewed, the stranger possessed a powerful ruggedness that was unusual in the gentlemen of St. Louis. His hard, chiseled features were remarkably handsome, his sensual mouth clean-cut and bracketed by twin grooves, his complexion tanned a deep bronze by the elements. His unruly, sun-streaked hair looked as if he hadn’t visited a barber in a great while, yet it was his eyes that were most striking. Even from a distance, she could see they were a light, startling shade of sky-blue.
Then, as if he sensed her watching, his gaze lifted slowly, meeting hers across the street. Heather found herself riveted by his stare. The cool intensity of his gaze unnerved her and made her pulse beat faster.
His gaze swept her form slowly, with a vague suggestion of scorn, as though he recognized her as the helpless, inept widgeon he’d rescued from the path of a runaway carriage. Heather flushed, hoping the wide brim of her bonnet hid her mortification.
“You are my hero, sir,” the young lady murmured in breathless praise, demanding his attention.
Suddenly an ironic half-smile curled the corner of his mouth. It was the kind of smile that made sensible women do foolish things, Heather realized, one that softened his hard features with breathtaking effect and invited others to share his amusement.
He was evidently accustomed to females swooning at his feet. That rueful, rough charm called out to her, even across the crowded thoroughfare, and she found her heart skipping a violent beat.
“I declare, Mama, I cannot walk another step,” the girl complained faintly, even as she gazed slyly up at her rescuer and fluttered her eyelashes at him. “You cannot make me get into that carriage again. I couldn’t bear it.”
“Is there a doctor nearby?” the stranger asked, his voice holding only the slightest hint of resignation.
“At the next corner,” the girl’s mother proclaimed.
“Then allow me, miss.”
With little effort, he swung the girl up in his arms. She looked perfectly happy to cling to his neck as he strode off with a long purposeful stride, not glancing back.
Heather stood there a moment, willing her heart to calm down. She was about to move on when an elegant landau drew up beside her.
She needed no one to tell her the stunning pair of matched grays belonged to Evan Randolf. The wealthy railroad magnate prized good horseflesh even more than beautiful women, and his stables were the finest in three states.
Evan was a handsome man, with dark hair and eyes, fashionably luxuriant sideburns, and a well-trimmed mustache. When he opened the carriage door for her, she saw that he wore an exquisitely tailored fawn frock coat. But then, he was never seen in public without being impeccably attired. An acquaintance of her late father, Evan was a spoiled and arrogant millionaire who was saved from sheer ruthlessness by a genuine charm and a keen intelligence she knew better than to underestimate. Although he moved in the most elevated circles of St. Louis society and could have his pick of beautiful socialites, he had struck on the misguided notion that she, Heather Ashford, would make him an ideal wife.
Descending from the carriage with elegant grace, he tipped his bowler to her in greeting. “Are you on your way home, my dear?” he asked with a hint of a British accent that betrayed his aristocratic origins. “Permit me to escort you.”
“That won’t be necessary, Evan,” Heather replied politely. “It is only a few blocks more.”
“Please, I insist,” he urged with a gentle smile that held every confidence he would get his way. And he usually did—through sheer charm and persistence. It was what made him so dangerous.
“I cannot leave you to trudge home in the cold, my dear, unaccompanied by a maidservant. Though I must say the chill has brightened your lovely eyes and put roses in your cheeks. You have been far too pale of late.”
Heather bit back the response on the tip of her tongue—that she was no longer in a position to afford a maidservant. Or that Evan himself had been the one to encourage her father’s disastrous gambling habits after her mother’s death, so that he’d squandered whatever remained of his wife’s inherited fortune at the poker tables.
She could have refused Evan’s offer of escort, but she did wish to speak to him alone. And she preferred to do so in private, on her own terms. He would not be happy with her decision, and a displeased Evan Randolf was not a man to be taken lightly.
Reluctantly she allowed him to hand her into the landau and settled into the plush leather cushions. During the short journey, her companion conversed about general pleasantries, but Heather remained unusually silent, uneasy with his proprietary air.
The landau drew to a stop before the modest house she now shared with Caitlin’s Aunt Winifred. Heather had sold her own home to pay her father’s gambling debts, and was living off Winnie’s charity.
“Will you come in?” she asked quietly. “There is a matter of importance I wished to discuss with you.”
Evan smiled benevolently, as if knowing she intended to discuss his suit. He obviously expected a favorable outcome.
Winnie would not be home, Heather knew, for she was shopping for tomorrow’s wedding breakfast, but Bridget should be. The young woman she’d employed in past years to help with her school was also living with Winnie until she found a new position.
Heather accepted Evan’s assistance in removing her coat and hung it on the rack in the hall. She did the same with her guest’s coat and hat, stored his gold-handled cane in the umbrella stand, and then led him into the front parlor.
The small house was not as elegant or spacious as the one she’d grown up in, but the clutter of lace doilies and sepia daguerreotypes and china figurines was attractively arranged to provide an atmosphere of homey cheer.
“Please have a seat. May I offer you tea?” Heather asked as Evan settled himself on the chintz settee.
“Thank you, I would enjoy some.”
She had to repress the impulse to reach for a rope-pull and ring for tea, for Winnie’s house was unequipped with such luxuries. Instead, she excused herself and went to the kitchen in the rear of the house, where she asked Bridget to prepare the refreshments.
Then, chiding herself for being a coward, Heather went upstairs to her bedchamber to remove her bonnet, an action she knew was only a delaying tactic.
She was reluctant to begin this interview, even a
bit fearful. Not only had she refused Evan’s suit more than once, but now she intended to wed another man entirely.
Evan Randolf was not accustomed to being spurned. The British capitalist had made a fortune in railroad stocks and mining ventures and was intent on winning every battle he chose to fight. In this instance, her.
For a long time she’d thought his pursuit of her merely the action of a bored profligate. It was common knowledge that he kept a mistress, a flamboyant stage actress, and that he enjoyed sporting a different woman on his arm each evening.
But she knew now that what Randolf cared about was power and how to wield it to further his own ends. He fancied Heather as an ornament for his empire, and was not above using his vast wealth to pressure her to accept his marriage proposal—including taking over her late father’s newspaper and buying up the mortgage for her school.
He’d mistakenly thought desperation would drive her into his arms, Heather reflected. He had offered to assume all her financial burdens, to protect her from worry and grief and settle her in the lap of luxury. And there had been moments during the past difficult six months when his offer seemed tempting.
Dismayingly, his determined pursuit of her had led to some unsavory gossip at first—when she couldn’t afford even a hint of scandal if she hoped to maintain her school’s exclusive reputation. One highbrowed matron had actually withdrawn her daughter from the school, before Evan let it be known he was courting her with honorable intentions, that of making her his wife. And of course then none of the other pupils’ mothers wished to offend the future Mrs. Randolf.
Heather could not understand his obsession with her. Though her mother’s family had been wealthy, she had never aspired to join the circles in which Evan moved, and made no secret of her discomfort with his scandalous life-style. Perhaps, though, her prime appeal was her reticence. Evan was not accustomed to being denied, and her refusal of his hand had only whetted his appetite for the chase. For several months now, she’d tried to walk a nerve-wracking line of warding off his pursuit without making an outright enemy of him.
The Heart Breaker Page 2
